


Shake Something Loose

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 13:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5129000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott and Stiles have their own apartment now. And almost immediately, Stiles becomes convinced that the place is haunted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shake Something Loose

“Dude, I’m telling you, something was rattling in the attic last night.”

“You’re hearing things, Stiles.”

“Scott, how many crazy supernatural things do we deal with on a regular basis? You’re telling me you’re not gonna believe me when I say I think this house is haunted?”

Scott nodded, conceding that point. They’d been through way too much – werewolves, kanima, darach, nogitsune, berserkers, supernatural ‘doctors’... ‘Ghosts’ were far from out of the realm of the possible, considering their lives. They had every right to expect that in getting an apartment together, they’d end up reenacting Poltergeist. 

“I’m not saying you’re crazy. I’m just saying maybe we should be able to settle in, live here for a few days or weeks before everything goes nuts.”

Stiles scoffed – like that could ever happen. Their lives were always various levels of crazy. Right now, they were at the usual, everyday crazy. Which meant that there were the general tensions with the odd family of hunters coming after the pack, and the balancing of any and all things supernatural with the fact that most of the people they interacted with on a day-to-day basis wouldn’t believe a word of ‘werewolf and pack fighting various supernatural things out to kill and destroy whatever’ and have them sent to Eichen House. 

Actually, not Eichen House, because Stiles had every intention of cutting off his own head before he went back to that place. But the point was no one would believe the reality of their lives.

“Come on, Scott. Shouldn’t we at least check it out?”

“And what if it is a ghost, Stiles? We’ve dealt with plenty of things before, but not ghosts.” Because if anyone was going to have ghostly encounters, it would be them. God knew there were enough following him around anyway. Surely they would have had to have dealt with something that refused to let go by now. Scott looked to Stiles, genuinely curious. “How would we handle a ghost?”

To that, Stiles had no real answer. Ghostbusting was not exactly something that they had a lot of experience with, even with all of their knowledge of the supernatural that they’d picked up over the last three years. Their default answer of ‘go to Deaton’ was probably the best solution they had, and the former Hale emissary had been rather open about his desire to back out and fade away now that Scott had firmly come into his own as an alpha, and had an emissary of his own in Stiles, much as Stiles remained fairly in the dark regarding anything supernatural they hadn’t already encountered. 

Still, Stiles had to answer the question. “What we always do. Panic, followed by creating a plan doomed to failure, then somehow manage to save the day through some bizarre set of circumstances that make little to no sense.” 

Hey, he wasn’t wrong.

Scott shrugged. “So why bother trying to get a head start now? Whatever we might come up with will be useless against a ghost anyway. Why bother with worrying?”

“You’re a horrible Alpha werewolf, you know that? You’re living with a supernatural threat, and you just figure ‘leave it alone until it hurts one of us’?”

***

The matter of their ‘ghost’ went undiscussed further for about a week. It wasn’t until a light bulb burned out in the apartment’s hallway that there was anything that could be used as fuel for Stiles’s ghost suspicions. Stiles tripped on the ladder, Scott and his werewolf reflexes catching him before he could fall into a puddle of limbs.

Stiles wasn’t even fully back on his feet before he started back up with the ghost talk. “I didn’t trip!”

“Stiles, you haven’t exactly been the most graceful of people.”

Stiles scowled – he couldn’t argue that, but come ON, Scott! “Dude, I’m telling you, something pushed me off that ladder!”

With a sigh, Scott let go of Stiles, now that he was back on his feet, and took a few tentative sniffs of the air. “The only thing I smell is us and the dishes you said you’d wash last night that are still in the sink.”

“Would a ghost even have a scent? I mean, they don’t have bodies.” 

While Stiles had a point, Scott wasn’t exactly inclined to encourage him – the ghost thing and his insistence on the matter was getting to be a little much. Stiles had always had issues with focus. Schoolwork fell by the wayside, but anything supernatural and he zeroed in on it so completely, he generally forgot about any possibility that wasn’t.

“Stiles...” Scott couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that point. “You’re creating problems.

“I’m trying to keep us safe!”

***

The resurgence of his belief that the apartment was haunted prompted him to call in Lydia, expecting their resident banshee to be able to determine if there was anything dead hanging around there.

Lydia, of course, was less than impressed.

“Lydia, please.”

“Please, what, Stiles? You’re looking for something to be wrong with your apartment,” she said. As she’d recognized that Stiles had wanted her to be there to use her banshee abilities (and so frivolously, no less), she’d pulled out a magazine and was flipping through the pages.

“There IS something wrong. I’m telling you, there’s a ghost in this apartment. And I want you to use your banshee abilities to prove it!”

She rolled her eyes. “Stiles. Banshees predict death. Ghosts? Already dead. Ergo, not my thing.”

“Come on, Lydia. You’re the closest thing to an expert I know!” Well, there was Deaton, but he had always kinda spooked Stiles. He’d sooner turn to the friendly neighborhood banshee instead of the veterinarian who always seemed to be studying them all in a jar if he had a choice in the matter. And, since he was the only one who seemed to be taking this seriously, he clearly did.

She was not impressed by his flattery. But she didn’t really have anything better to do than go along with it. She looked to him again. “All right. So what exactly am I supposed to do?” she asked. She would have placed good money on him not knowing what the next step should be.

She would also have won that bet, as his response was to pause and then gesticulate wildly. “I don’t know, some kind of banshee... THING that could tell if something dead is living here.”

Lydia desperately wanted to roll her eyes again, but settled for a disgusted sigh. She was hitting up against her limit and needed to pace herself. “Stiles...” she said, crossing her arms. 

Even as he started to plead again, though, she felt something prickle at the edge of her awareness. It was a feeling, something difficult to put her finger on exactly. It wasn’t quite what she’d come to recognize as her premonitions of death (thankfully, she might add). But it was, if nothing else, an implication. She considered it for a minute. There was something about it...

It took a few minutes, but Stiles realized that Lydia wasn’t paying him any attention. “Lydia? Lydia!”

She jumped just slightly at his loudness. Then she gave him a stink eye. “Stiles!” She shook her head. “Look. Whatever banshees might or might not do doesn’t matter. All I can tell you is that nothing is here that shouldn’t be as far as I can tell.”

He deflated disappointed that her moment hadn’t resulted in anything like what he wanted to hear. “Isn’t there something else, though? I mean-”

“Stiles, do you just NEED this place to be haunted? Is that it? Are you THAT desperate for something new to try and kill all of us that you’re imagining things?”

He had the decency to look abashed at her words. Though she’d put up real money in a bet about Scott having said the same thing to him, so she wasn’t going to expect that this would be the real end of it. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds like a bad thing.”

She gave in to the urge to roll her eyes.

***

Since the loft was still Derek’s space, regardless of whether or not he was there, out on a hunt with Braeden, or visiting Cora in South America, the pack began to use Scott and Stiles apartment for movie nights. Since they were all local enough to make it on Saturdays, they’d gather and pull up Netflix for a few hours. It had been Kira’s idea, since she’d known that Scott liked having the pack unite and stay together. 

Pack movie night had been happening for a few weeks when something crashed in one of the bedrooms as they were watching movies. Naturally, they’d been watching a horror movie at the time, which meant the unexpected noise had caused several jumps, two bowls of popcorn to be overturned, a remote lost in the cushions, and three sets of claws lashing out at unseen opponents. 

To no surprise, it was Lydia who calmed down enough to recognize the sound first. “Guys. Relax. It was probably just some books or something,” she said.

“Or maybe it’s Stiles’s ghost at it again,” Liam said with a grin, having gotten a lot of mileage out of the fact that Stiles thought that the apartment was haunted.

Though Stiles scowled, Scott jumped in before he could get a response out. He grabbed Stiles’s arm. “C’mon. Let’s at least go look, huh?” he said. Somehow, although from anyone else in the room, that probably would have made Stiles feel patronized, he silently nodded and followed Scott towards the bedrooms.

Scott led Stiles to his bedroom, looking at where he’d stashed his schoolbooks. They had indeed fallen over, Scott’s biology textbook open right smack in the middle.

“Lydia was right,” Scott said. Although he wasn’t going to admit it, that recognition caused him to relax a little. He’d been wound up between the horror movie and Stiles’s chatter on the subject of a haunted apartment, for a little bit there, he’d begun to think there was something to the idea. Not that he was entirely discounting Stiles’s ghost theory, but there was no real reason to invite chaos and catastrophe. 

“Of course she was,” Stiles sighed. Scott looked to him to see that he had a defeated look about him. He shook his head. “Lydia’s always right. And I’m a complete fool.”

Scott couldn’t quite wrap his head around Stiles’s reaction. “Stiles, you’re not a fool.”

“Oh, come on. I know they’re thinking that out there. I’m jumping at shadows, making up something new for us to deal with.” 

“Yeah, but it’s not like you don’t have reason.” They’d had too many encounters with all kinds of things supernatural to just ignore any sensation of something being wrong in Beacon Hills because it seemed ridiculous. Scott considered it a minor miracle they hadn’t had a run in with vampires yet. They always seemed tied up with werewolf mythology.

But Stiles didn’t seem comforted by Scott pointing that out. “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m here, jumping at shadows.”

“Look, if this is about what Liam said, I can talk to him-”

“It’s not about Liam. It’s about... I’m so used to things being crazy, I’m actually trying to make things up, just to give us something to deal with. Lydia called it. I am so screwed up, I want us to be dealing with some new threat, something else trying to kill us.” He crumpled onto the bed, running his hands through his hair. 

Scott was immediately sitting next to him. “Stiles. C’mon. After everything we’ve been through, it makes sense you’d be ready to jump at noises and sounds.” There was too much history that they’d had that said strange things meant that they’d be fighting for their lives within the next few weeks. Scott didn’t want to make it seem as if he didn’t believe Stiles.

He placed a hand on Stiles’s shoulder, trying to let that touch and gesture relieve his frustration and anger. Scott wished he could take that away as easy as he did pain. 

There was a beat, silence dominating. The only thing they could hear was their own breathing. Stiles looked up, and saw that Scott’s eyes were fixed on his. 

“Scott...” he whispered. Scott shushed him, and their lips met. 

It was like an epiphany for Stiles. Being here, in this place, with Scott... He was safe. He was here with Scott, and Scott would protect him. He always had protected him and always would. Whatever else might come, he knew as long as he and Scott were together, they’d come through it. 

Scott finally pulled back, a hand coming up and gently cradling Stiles’s face. His eyes were saying a thousand things to Stiles – ‘you’re my brother,’ ‘you’re my best friend,’ ‘I love you,’ ‘I’ll always be here for you,’ ‘you have me.’ Most importantly, they told Stiles that here, with Scott, he would always have a space where he’d be believed and loved.

They understood it all in the span of seconds, and Stiles couldn’t – and wouldn’t have – keep from giving Scott a return kiss, knowing that it would be returned, always.

They were too busy with each other to hear the door open. But they heard Mason remark, “Ha! Pay up, Liam!” Scott and Stiles jerked apart, seeing the audience. Liam was grumbling as he reached into his wallet for the money he owed Mason. 

“Finally,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes. “It took you two forever.”

Scott awkwardly cleared his throat, deciding that they had suddenly very little room in the rather small apartment. “Uh, come on, guys. Let’s get back to the movie, huh?” He hopped off the bed and was halfway to the couch in the other room before he realized that he had pulled Stiles along by their entwined hands. He gave Stiles a lop-sided grin, and got a smile in return.

***

Lydia was the last one awake. Liam and Mason had passed out first, and Kira had had to leave early to go and spend the next day with her parents. Malia, having claimed the old creaker of an armchair, was curled up and asleep. And, on the couch, still holding hands, Scott and Stiles were asleep, Stiles drooling slightly on Scott’s shoulder. 

She switched off the TV and decided she’d sleep on a real bed, thank you. Figuring that Scott and Stiles would shortly move Stiles’s things into the bedroom currently claimed by Scott (perks of being the Alpha apparently included the master suite), she made her way to Stiles’s room.

As she flipped off the lights, she thought she saw for a moment the image of a young woman, a brunette, wearing a leather jacket, jeans, and an archer’s glove. She smirked slightly.

So maybe there was – or had been – a ghost here. If anything, it struck Lydia that Scott and Stiles should be glad someone was looking out for them.


End file.
